


On a Sunday Afternoon

by waltswhits



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A. Z. Fell & Co, Coming Out, Flirting, Fluff, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), I'm soft., Is this good parenting? I haven't decided yet..., Mutual Pining, Nanny takes Warlock to the bookshop, implied - Freeform, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 11:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19828858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltswhits/pseuds/waltswhits
Summary: Nanny and Warlock sometimes go on weekend outings to London.Once, they went to a very special bookshop.





	On a Sunday Afternoon

**Author's Note:**

> I go out to work on a Monday morning  
> Tuesday I go off to honeymoon  
> I'll be back again before it's time for Sunny-down,  
> I'll be lazing on a Sunday afternoon
> 
> Bicycling on every Wednesday evening  
> Thursday I go waltzing to the Zoo  
> I come from London town, I'm just an ordinary guy,  
> Fridays I go painting in the Louvre
> 
> I'm bound to be proposing on a Saturday night  
> (There he goes again)  
> I'll be lazing on a Sunday  
> Lazing on a Sunday  
> Lazing on a Sunday afternoon.
> 
> \- Queen, "[Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU6EyXcFBxA)"

“Where are we going, Nanny?” Warlock asked as he buttoned his coat (sensible navy wool, carefully chosen during their seasonal clothes shopping outings to Oxford Street). 

“Shopping, dear.” She smiled as she fixed his hair. Warlock was nearing nine, but he still hadn't quite mastered hair brushing. 

“At Selfridges?” He asked, perking up. 

“No, dear. We’re going someplace new today.” 

Warlock frowned. He wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. 

“I'll take you to tea afterwards.” Nanny Ashtoreth suggested, and his frown vanished into the air. “ _If_ you behave.” 

Warlock tugged on Nanny’s hand, pulling her out the front door. “I will!” 

She held his hand tightly on the front steps, until a driver arrived in a gleaming black car. Nanny made sure Warlock was settled in the backseat, then called for the driver to take them to Soho in her prim Scottish voice. 

Despite Warlock’s persistence, Nanny kept mum about where they were going for the whole ride. She stayed in poised silence, her gloved hands clasping a handbag (it was her favorite, deep red velvet, with a clasp adorned with silver snakes), neither of which were very unusual to Warlock. He entertained himself with reading passing street signs in funny voices. Once, he's very proud to say, he thought he even heard Nanny Ashtoreth _chuckle._

“Stop here.” She asked the driver curtly, and he obliged. She unbuckled Warlock, and led him by the hand onto the street. 

“We’ll be finished at four, pick us up at the corner of Regents Street and Air, will you?” She leaned into the driver’s window. He nodded with a grin (that bordered on leery), and Nanny returned it with her own curt, poised nod. 

The car drove off, and Nanny led Warlock down the rather populated street, past several townhouses and shops that Warlock thought were very old, perhaps even older than his father.

She came to a halt at the corner, where stood a dusty-looking bookshop. If Warlock had looked, he'd have seen a sentimental sort of smile on Nanny’s face, though half hidden behind her rounded glasses frames. But Warlock was eight, and he was more interested in the shop windows. 

“A Z Fell and Co?” Warlock read, quizzically. “Looks...boring.” He declared. (Boring was one of his favorite words at the moment, having recently learned it from one of his friends, the son of a very prominent member of the House Of Lords.)

“It isn't boring.” Nanny said shortly, and opened the wooden door for the child to enter. 

Inside, the shop was dusty and cluttered, a far cry from the carefully curated, fluorescently lit shops that Nanny usually took Warlock to. He couldn't help but look all around, staring up at the ceiling (a deep blue, painted with golden constellations) and reading book spines. Curious though he was, he stayed carefully close to Nanny’s side. 

“Hello!” Came a voice from somewhere in the shop, though Warlock was too short to see past the teetering stacks and shelves to find out who it belonged to. Footsteps approached, and a man in a light colored suit appeared, as if he had come out of the dust itself.

Warlock thought he looked oddly familiar. 

“Hello again, Aziraphale.” Nanny smiled despite herself. She placed a delicate kiss upon his cheek, and whispered something Warlock couldn't hear into the strange man’s ear. 

Aziraphale blushed. Quickly he turned his attention to the little boy, who was now clutching his nanny’s arm like it was a life raft in a foreign sea. 

“Hello, young man.” Aziraphale lowered himself to be level with Warlock, carefully hiding his usual easy familiarity with the boy. “What’s your name?” he asked, with a voice as soft and sweet as the milky tea Nanny sometimes gave him before bed.

“Warlock,” he replied in an uncharacteristically small voice. He didn't know who this man was, or why he would get a kiss from his Nanny, but he supposed if Nanny liked him he was probably alright to talk to. 

“Lovely name. You certainly don't meet too many Warlocks these days.” He smiled at Warlock and ruffled his hair, rising back up again. “Come in, now, shall we take a look at some of the children's books?” 

Aziraphale led them to a cozy alcove in the shop, made from three mismatched, wide shelves pushed together. The shelves held copy after copy of the loveliest children's books Warlock had ever seen- illustrated editions of Peter Rabbit from 1910, a stack of Just William books with mouldering covers, a Peter Pan pop-up book open to a detailed cut out of Neverland, and at least two shelves of books with titles Warlock couldn't understand (the foreign language section). 

Aziraphale patted a threadbare, overstuffed chair for Warlock to sit in, which he did, his face glowing with wonder. 

“Read whatever you like, Warlock.” Aziraphale smiled. Warlock thought nothing of it, of course, but it was an admission of the greatest trust. 

Warlock stood to examine the first bookshelf, a spindly legged thing that reached up to the ceiling, and looked at the books just at his eye level. After a few minutes of quiet scrutiny, he found a book he thought Nanny might like. It had a black cover dotted with pictures of witches and moons. He turned to show her, but Nanny and the man had vanished, leaving him alone with only the books for company. 

Warlock screwed up his mouth in annoyance, but didn't want to get lost in the strange shop, so he stayed put, and looked for something to read. 

In the back room of the bookshop, an angel and a demon smiled over the glasses of sherry they really shouldn't have been having. 

“I’ve missed you looking like this.” The demon teased, painted lips pursing and uncovered eyes shining.

“Like what?” Aziraphale sipped his sherry coyly. He blamed his blush on the alcohol. 

“Oh, hush, Angel. Clean shaven.” The carefully coiffed demon sat on the sofa with grace, though rather close to an increasingly flustered angel. 

“And you, looking-” Aziraphale began, but cut himself off. “Don’t frown, dear. I was going to say that you looked rather…… _beautiful._ ” He said the last word with unexpected reverence, peppered with the taste of things left so long unsaid. 

“Thank you.” The demon said in a rather small voice. “And you, too.” A hasty addition.

“I mean it,” Aziraphale insisted. “I don't mind this at all,” he said, with more flirtation than was characteristic (though which was beginning to creep in more and more frequently between them in the past decade or so), “It suits you, Cr- _dear._ ” 

He took a long sip of his drink, as an excuse to do anything else but speak on either topic that they really ought to discuss. 

“You can call me Ashtoreth, Angel.” It came out in a whisper. “When I'm...when I'm Ashtoreth.” 

Aziraphale nodded and topped up his glass, letting that meaning settle in.

“More sherry, Ashtoreth, dear?” he offered. 

“Well, a bit more couldn't hurt.” A sigh of relief. Manicured hands grasped the bottle and she filled her glass once more. 

“Warlock seems rather chipper today,” said Aziraphale after another sip. 

“He likes our outings.” Ashtoreth didn’t bother hiding her pride. “It’s especially nice to finally take him to the shop, though.” 

“Can't think of a better way to spend my day off,” the angel smiled cheerily. 

Ashtoreth polished off her second glass, and let herself inch closer to Aziraphale on the couch. 

“Speaking of,” she suddenly remembered, “shouldn't we go check on him?” 

Aziraphale made a face. “He’ll be fine. He's ten years old, dear.” 

“He's _eight._ ” Ashtoreth scowled. “Thank someone that I'm doing the child-raising and not you, you...numpty.” 

“I still think he’s perfectly alright. He's a smart boy.” Aziraphale continued, as Ashtoreth shook her head in disbelief. 

“Who's smart?” came a small voice from behind them. 

Ashtoreth turned to find little Warlock standing there. Speak of the Antichrist, and he shall come, it seemed. She turned quickly back and replaced her sunglasses. 

“What are you doing?” Warlock asked matter-of-factly, sitting himself down in the chair across from the sofa. 

Aziraphale shifted carefully away on the cushion. 

“Just having a chat, darling.” Nanny Ashtoreth said simply. 

“About what?” he insisted, sitting up with his arms crossed. 

“All sorts of things.” Aziraphale replied quickly. 

“What are you drinking? Can I have some?” 

“It's for grownups, love.” Nanny set her glass down and regarded the boy. “Did you pick out a book?” 

Warlock nodded firmly and lifted up a skinny, black book to show the pair. “It's called The Midnight Hour. It has witches in it, and also a cat. I read seven pages.” He announced proudly. 

“Would you like to borrow it, Warlock?” Aziraphale asked with a gentle smile. He had a terrible soft spot for the child. 

“Is this a library?” he asked, in genuine wonderment. 

Nanny Ashtoreth covered a laugh with a black gloved hand. 

“Ah...yes.” Aziraphale admitted, “Yes, it rather is.” 

“Okay. I want to borrow this book, then.” He said with firm excitement.

“I would like to borrow this book, _please._ ” Nanny softly corrected out of habit as she rose from the sofa. 

Warlock pouted, but obliged. “Please.” 

Aziraphale smiled and he, too, stood. 

Nanny led Warlock to the shop’s counter by the hand. The boy clutched the book closely to his chest. 

Aziraphale leaned on the worn countertop, marking out a slip for the book, which he handed to Warlock. 

“L-lent to Warlock Dowling, that's me, for as long as he sh..” he looked up at his nanny for help reading. 

“For as long as he shall require it.” Nanny finished for him. “It means you can keep it until you're finished with it.” 

Warlock grinned. “That's _so cool!_ Thanks!” (‘Cool’ was another word he'd recently learned, this one from a seven-year-old Pepsi-Co heiress).

Nanny checked the engraved pocket watch that hung from her waist. 

“Time for tea, Warlock.” 

Warlock grinned. When they went out to tea, Nanny let him have as many sweets as he wanted. 

He stood on his toe tips to see over the counter, and waved at Aziraphale, who had receded back to lean against the wall and watch. 

“Aren't you going to come?” Warlock asked. 

“Oh, do you mean me?” Aziraphale shifted in surprise. 

“Yeah, aren't you coming to tea?” he stated more than asked. 

“Well,” the bookseller, just as shabbily elegant as his store, softly spoke, “only if your nanny will have me, of course.” 

Nanny Ashtoreth smirked. “Come along, Aziraphale. You’ll like this place.” 

As they left into the brisk, Autumn afternoon, Aziraphale replaced a notecard in the shop window: “ _Closed indefinitely, except on some Sundays when I change my mind._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me: [waltswhits on tumblr](http://waltswhits.tumblr.com/)  
> Look. I got emotional over Nanny Ashtoreth today, and this just....happened.


End file.
